


And You Can't Breathe Here

by roseandheather



Category: Code Black (TV)
Genre: F/M, The Author Misses Her Cat, The Author is a Cat Person, This is Idfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-11
Updated: 2016-03-11
Packaged: 2018-05-26 02:24:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6219949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roseandheather/pseuds/roseandheather
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ed meets the most important lady in Leanne's life. It goes very, very well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And You Can't Breathe Here

Exactly two weeks after he first kisses Leanne Rorish, Ed meets Angel.

Leanne opens the door wearing some sort of silky, cherry-blossom-patterned kimono thing that barely comes halfway down her thighs, so it takes him a few moments to notice the chirping, feline-shaped ball of fur at his feet.

But when he finally takes notice, all he can do is blink several times.

There might even be a few tears, but _he'd_ never admit that.

The pure white cat has a fine-boned, delicate face and body, with a sleek feline elegance he can only envy. Her emerald green eye blinks up at him curiously, and she rises on her hind leg to brace her forepaws somewhere below his knee. But clearly, at some point in her life, the little cat has been to the wars. Her left eye is missing, her left ear is tattered and torn, and her left hind leg has obviously been amputated at the hip - long enough ago for the incision to have healed over and grown fur to cover it, but slightly visible nonetheless to a trained doctor.

Somehow - almost absurdly so - she's beautiful.

He's always liked cats. Their elegance and independence has always spoken to him, and this one's friendly nature despite her rough history speaks to him more than most.

"Hello, little one," he says, crouching down and reaching out to scritch around the cat's non-mangled ear. "What's your name?"

"Angel," says Leanne from somewhere above him, and there's a suspicious hitch to her voice. "Her name is Angel."

Angel rubs her cheek against his knee with the air of someone settling a question. No fool he, he scoops the little cat into his arms and straightens up again (ignoring the creak of aging knees, thank you).

The cat indicates her satisfaction with this state of affairs by purring so loudly he nearly jumps out of his skin.

Later, when they're curled on the couch (and he is only moderately distracted by the rather alarming amount of leg displayed by Leanne's silky robe-kimono-whatever), Leanne tells him how she acquired the cat in the first place.

"It was after the accident," she says, her eyes focused on the cat. "I'd lost... everything. Everyone. I was so lonely. I couldn't bear to get a dog - not after losing..." She breaks off, and he reaches out instinctively, rubbing his thumb over her cheek. "Anyway, I hoped that if I got something that needed taking care of, that would force me to get out of bed every day and feed it, play with it, cuddle it... maybe it would help. And with my schedule... let's just say feline independence is a lifesaver when you're on your own working emergency room shifts. So I went to the shelter and I said, 'I want to meet the cat who's least likely to get adopted.' They looked at me like I was crazy, but then they took me to meet this little girl. She was only just out of the hospital at that point, terrified of everything - she'd just huddle in a corner and shiver. But when I came over, she reached out with one paw to touch my hand - and then she began to purr. The shelter worker said it was the first time she'd heard her purr since she got there, and I just... well, I couldn't leave her there, could I? So she came home with me a few days later, and I was right. Having her... it did help. Does help."

"It sounds like you helped each other," he observes, gently stroking Leanne's hair where her head has come to rest on his shoulder.

She looks up at him with big brown eyes then, still a little bit lost, and when he leans in to kiss her, nothing else matters.

Eventually they break apart, both a little bit dazed, and he looks at the cat still on his lap. "All right, young lady," he says, lifting her into his arms again and carrying her to the ceiling-high cat tree in the corner, "I need some private time with your person." He deposits her on the most convenient platform, and she strolls into the carpeted hideaway, curls up, and tucks her nose under her tail-tip with an air of purely feline satisfaction. "No third parties invited."

He turns away from the cat tree to find Leanne right behind him, and he barely has time to blink before she's in his arms, kissing him like the world's about to end.

And when they finally tumble into bed with each other, it does.

At least for a little while.

 


End file.
